


Keen

by lacewood



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-17
Updated: 2014-04-17
Packaged: 2018-01-19 17:48:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1478557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lacewood/pseuds/lacewood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of short fic/drabbles, mostly centered on the girls</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Things You Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sakura is a smart girl. She knows who her friends are, and she knows when it ends.

Sakura is smart.

She is sure of this, because it's one of the few strengths she can be sure of. She knows that she might not be all that pretty, all that strong, but she knows her strengths.

Knowing _is_ her strength.

Knowing the answers to every exam question, how to use every scrap of her chakra so it counts, the right thing to say (never mind what you really think). She knows all this.

She also knows that Ino is the best friend she'll ever have. And that Ino likes Sasuke; she knows this even before Ino will admit it to herself.

A small voice in her wails at that. She'll never stand a chance against Ino! She's too pretty, too talented, too charming. But she's not ready to give up; she _can't_ give up a fight like this. 

Ino taught her that. Ino, who fought for her when she was too weak to fight for herself.

Ino, who will not admit she likes Sasuke because she knows _Sakura_ likes Sasuke.

Sakura knows that she may never be as good as Ino. Sakura understands that she has to try anyway. 

Some fights, you can't run from. You can only make them as fair and clean as you can.

Ino is her friend, and _she_ is Ino's. But Ino cannot see this, and the fight is not fair to her. She is trying to protect Sakura when in the end, it will hurt them both.

Sakura can see this where Ino can't.

This time, she thinks, it is her turn to protect Ino. To give her the fair fight she deserves.

"I know you like Sasuke."

Sakura watches her eyes widen, her lips part in instinctive denial.

"Don't deny it."

The wind rises, so that she has to grip the ribbon in her outstretched hand tightly.

"From now on, we are rivals, not friends."

Betrayal, hurt, flickers in Ino's eyes before she can hide them. Sakura sets her chin, refuses to let it fall, and Ino's fingers curl around the ribbon, take it back.

Because Ino is the best friend she'll ever have.

And Sakura knows.

One day she _will_ understand.

_end_

January 2004


	2. Cloud Reading

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shikamaru and Tenten, reading clouds

He doesn't believe in her cards. He finds them illogical, so he calls them troublesome, like he calls everything else. Instead, he lies on his back and watches the clouds.

What does he see in them? she asks.

He doesn't answer at first - maybe that is too troublesome too. Then he shifts and lifts an arm to point at a small wisp of white, lonely against the blue.

Duckling.

She squints and doesn't see it.

A two-handed sabre, she suggests, studying the sweeping curve of its tail.

He snorts. Is that all you ever think of? Duckling, he repeats, then lets his arm fall, like he doesn't care anyway.

How is that logical? she asks, teasing.

It's not, he shrugs.

She thinks of a different boy, with long black hair like water. His answers are absolute, his fate set (even if he is slowly learning to break free of it).

Shikamaru slips through her fingers, with his tricky mind and his lazy answers. But at the end of the day, he's there anyway. Probably found it too troublesome to move or find someone else, Tenten thinks, but the thought doesn't bother her.

He is here, after all, of his own choosing.

Shikamaru watches the clouds and makes his own fate.

_end_

June 2005


	3. Mythology

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tenten discovers the Sannin

This is the first thing they tell them in the Academy: the kunoichi's art is a subtle one.

Legends are made by men, they say, out on the battlefields. There will be women on those fields as well, whether as healers or whores or fighters in their own right, but theirs are not the names that will be written in history's books, theirs are not the hands that will cleave the land around them and remake it, for better or worse.

A woman's place is harder to pin down, to define. A throat cut in the dark, an ear in the right place, a painted smile to hide bloody teeth - the Anbu's mask is nothing compared to the masks they will learn to fashion and discard at will, their teachers tell them.

Tenten remembers the day she first heard the story of the Sannin - of Tsunade. There were pictures in their history books: two men and a woman, larger and more terrible and beautiful than the monsters surrounding them. They were rough caricatures, at best, but she still remembers stopping, staring, running a wondering finger over the woman's pale face.

"Tsunade was a woman," she remembers saying. 

The teacher stopped mid-lecture. "Did you have a question?"

"No. Nothing!"

She brought the book home and read the chapter on the sannin three times before bed.

Even kunoichi can be legends, she thinks before she falls alseep.

_end_

August 2005


	4. Realisation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Naruto and Hinata, in a river

Naruto splashes out of the water, swearing, to the sound of rather more laughter than he wants to hear when he's just been _pushed_ , into a _river_ , by his _treacherous friends_. "I'M GONNA GET YOU ALL!" he yells and shakes a wet fist, and nearly hits Hinata, who's somehow knee deep in the water too. "Ah! Hinata! Sorry 'bout that!" he says and then blinks and she turns red and _now_ she nearly slips and falls into the water. 

"Oh! Um, are you okay? I was just a little worried and um, you're very wet, you're going to catch a cold," she says. 

He grins at her. "Nah, I'll be fine. Once I GET THOSE BASTARDS I'M NOT FORGETTING THIS YOU HEAR ME!" he roars after their retreating backs. "Now you're wet too," he says, looking up at her and she jumps and turns even redder. 

"I - I'm okay!" she mumbles, flustered. 

Naruto flails and tries to stand, but the mud keeps sliding under his feet and now Hinata's getting wet too from his splashing. Then she offers him a shaky hand and pulls him up. For a minute, Naruto tries to calculate how long it'll take him to catch everyone and make them _pay_ , but then Hinata starts giggling, quietly, and he looks at her. 

"Hinata," he decides, "you're really nice, you know that? Really nice! I think I like you best after all." She jumps at that.

"Ah? Ah - ah - Na - Naruto - you're, um--"

He grabs her hand. "Come on!" he says. " Now let's go get them!"

_end_

April 2006


End file.
